Here we find a post deemed worthy of a series discussion. We've all heard the countless versions of how Dan and Steve escaped the fire at Glenrowan. The Odds were stacked against the pair, however, and miraculously they escaped, but How? Dee explains:

'I went to Glenrowan and met Gary Dean, a serious and knowledgeable Kelly buff and the author of several books about the Kelly Outbreak who clearly is convinced Steve and Dan survived. Maybe I shouldn’t have dismissed Dans survival so readily – but then, on the other hand Mr Dean did seriously entertain other ideas that were not too far from ‘UFO abductees and 911 conspiracy’.

There are several obvious major problems to be explained by people like Gary Dean if they expect anyone to take them seriously. Firstly, how would anyone in a cellar get out and get away unseen from the middle of the wreckage of the Inn, in broad daylight when it was surrounded by police, the press, photographers and the general public who flocked to Glenrowan to observe the goings on before during and after the siege? The Police raked two bodies out of the wreckage but didnt see two men climb up out of a cellar and slip away into the crowd? They didnt even report a cellar. Please explain why nobody ever reported seeing or meeting the two drunks whose incinerated unidentifiable bodies were said to be Dan and Steves? And the Policeman who entered the burning Inn who positively identified Dan?'

'If you search Trove for James Ryan you will find articles about him and Jack Allen in Queensland’s ‘Truth’ newspaper dated Sunday August 13th 1933.(HERE) and also Sunday 22nd and 29th December 1935. Here is a quote from the first paragraph of the 1935 article – read it and spot the obvious mistake:

“But this old man says he escaped from that fire. Racked by agonising burns, he crawled to the nearby scrub, and from there watched the armored Ned Kelly's last savage stand against a mob of police and civilians.”

There are many other mistakes in the claims of James Ryan that might only be obvious to someone who is familiar with the story of the Outbreak. People up in Queensland back then, and it would seem even modern City Councillors might not have been all that familiar with the detail of the Outbreak and may not have spotted much of the nonsense in Ryans claims, such as a claim that Neds father was still alive when Ned went to Gaol, such as his claim that the Gaol Ned was sent to was the Berrima Gaol, that Red called Ellen ‘Kate’, that he never knew who her father was, that he and Ned never went to school, that he had a sister called Nora, that Ned wore his armour out on the highway and robbed the Ballarat Gold escort, and even that he shot and killed Fitzpatrick! He elaborates many colourful stories that are vaguely credible but completely beyond verification, but if a person cant remember important verifiable facts like when his own father died, who his siblings were, and when he gets the sequence of events at Glenrowan so mixed up, what credibility does he have? I wonder if Councillor Paul Tully knows that Ned was captured early in the morning and the Inn set alight at 3pm? If Ryan really had crawled out of the ruins of the Inn, Ned by that time would have been in bed at the Station under guard and being attended by the doctor. Ryans claim to have witnessed Neds last stand, the dramatic climax to the entire Outbreak, was a lie. This basic fact alone completely ruins Ryans credibility.'

Did they or didn't they survive? The truth lies within a secret pact between the Hart and Kelly descendants. We will never know.